re:--

"Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot ultimately be
defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to
degeneration: we have long preserved our constitution, let us make
some struggles for our language.

"In hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature forbids
to be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labour of years, to
the honour of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of
philology to the nations of the continent. The chief glory of
every people arises from its authors; whether I shall add anything
by my own writings to the reputation of English literature, must
be left to time: much of my life has been lost under the pressure
of disease; much has been trifled away; and much has always been
spent in provision for the day that was passing over me; but I
shall not think my employment useless or ignoble, if by my
assistance foreign nations, and distant ages, gain access to the
propagators of knowledge, and understand the teachers of truth;
if my labours afford light to the repositories of science, and add
celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and to Boyle.

"When I am animated by this wish, I look with pleasure on my book,
however defective, and deliver it to the world with the spirit of
a man that has endeavoured well. That it will immediately become
popular I have not promised to myself: a few wild blunders and
risible absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity was
ever free, may for a time furnish folly with laughter, and harden
ignorance in contempt; but useful diligence will at last prevail,
and there never can be wanting some, who distinguish desert, who
will consider that no dictionary of a living tongue can ever be
perfect, since while it is hastening to publication, some words
are budding, and some falling away; that a whole life cannot be
spent upon syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would
not be sufficient; that he whose design includes whatever language
can express must often speak of what he does not understand; that
a writer will sometimes be hurried by eagerness to the end, and
sometimes faint with weariness under a task which Scaliger
compares to the labours of the anvil and the mine; that what is
obvious is not always known, and what is known is not always
present; that